Yuma, Arizona
Yuma contains the historical Yuma Territorial Prison and the Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Historic Park. Near Yuma are the Kofa Mountain Range and wildlife refuge, Martinez and Mittry Lakes, and the Algodones Dunes. The city is also the location of the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, which conducts an annual air show and many large-scale military exercises. There is also the Yuma Proving Ground, an Army base which tests new military equipment. Another point of interest in Yuma is the Colorado River which runs along the north and west side of town dividing Arizona and California. Yuma is an important station for trucking industry movement of goods between California, Arizona, and Mexico. Marine Corps Air Station Yuma Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (MCAS Yuma) is a United States Marine Corps air station which is the home to multiple squadrons of AV-8B Harrier IIs of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 (MAWTS-1) and Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 (VMFT-401), an air combat adversary squadron of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing of the Marine Corps Reserve. Since the Marine Corps is taking out the AV-8B Harrier II's in the early part of 2012. The Marine Corps is going to the SVTOL of the new Joint Strike Fighter the F-35B Lightning II's. The station is located 2 miles (3 km) from the city of Yuma, Arizona. Yuma Proving Ground The U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground is one of the largest military installations in the world. Situated in southwestern La Paz County and western Yuma County in southwestern Arizona, U.S., approximately north-east of the city of Yuma, the proving ground is used for testing military equipment and encompasses 1,307.8 square miles (3,387.2 km²) in the Sonoran Desert. A resident population of 782 persons lived on its territory as of the 2000 census. The proving ground conducts tests on nearly every weapon system in the ground combat arsenal. Munitions and artillery systems are tested here in an area almost completely removed from urban encroachment and noise concerns. Restricted airspace controlled by the test center amounts to over . In a typical year, over 500,000 artillery, mortar and missile rounds are fired, 36,000 parachute drops take place, 200,000 grueling road miles are driven on military vehicles, and over 4000 air sorties are flown from the proving ground’s Laguna Army Airfield. Yuma Proving Ground features the longest overland artillery range (40 miles) in the nation, the most highly instrumented helicopter armament test range in the Department of Defense, over of improved road courses for testing tracked and wheeled military vehicles, over of fiber-optic cable linking test locations, and the most modern mine and demolitions test facility in the western hemisphere. In 1966 16 sounding rockets of "Martlet"-type were launched from Yuma Proving Ground The proving ground’s sparkling clean air, low humidity, skimpy rainfall—only about three inches per year—and annual average of 350 sunny days, add up to almost perfect testing and training conditions. Urban encroachment and noise concerns are non-existent problems, unlike at many other military installations. Of the four extreme natural environments recognized as critical in the testing of military equipment, three fall under the management authority of Yuma Proving Ground. Realistic natural environment testing ensures that American military equipment performs as advertised, wherever deployed around the world. Yuma Proving Ground is fast becoming the Department of Defense’s premiere test and evaluation site for improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IEDs, the number one killer of American service men and women in Iraq. Hundreds of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles fly at the proving ground each year, as do helicopters and fixed wing aircraft conducting personnel and cargo parachute drops. Nearly all the long range artillery testing for U.S. ground forces takes place at Yuma Proving Ground. Many friendly foreign nations also visit the proving ground to conduct test programs, including Germany, Japan, Canada, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Britain, France, and others. Capabilities include: * Ground weapons systems from small arms to long range artillery * Helicopter armament and target acquisition systems * Artillery and tank munitions * Cargo and personnel parachutes, including guided systems technologies * Land mines and mine-removal systems * Tracked and wheeled vehicles in a desert environment * Vibration and interference-free tests of smart weapon systems * Laguna Army Airfield complex, featuring two runways – 6,000 feet and 5,150 feet. * 12 drop zones and multiple airstrips for Unmanned Aerial Systems * A overland artillery range, the longest in the nation * Over of improved road courses for tracked and wheeled vehicles * State-of-the-art fiber optics systems to acquire, reduce and transmit data in real time Tests include: * Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon, the most advanced piece of the Army’s Future Combat Systems program * M777, a 155 mm lightweight howitzer * Dragon Fire heavy automated mortar for USMC * XM982 Excalibur 155 mm precision-guided artillery projectile * Advanced Tactical Parachute System * Army and Navy Unmanned Aerial Systems - over 1000 flights per year * AH-64D Longbow Apache Helicopter * M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank * Bradley Fighting Vehicle * Stryker Combat Vehicle * Extended Range Artillery and Tank Munitions * Mine and Countermine Systems * Electronic Counter Measure Devices * AGM-114 Hellfire, AIM-92 Stinger, AGM-65 Maverick and Brimstone missiles fired from helicopters.